Dumboso. Juan turned away from them and started toward the bikestand.
"So what did Miri Gu tell you?" when she shook hands. Bertie's tone was casual.
How could he answer that question without getting Bertie dipped all over again? "It's strange. She said if she and I team, she doesn't want anyone remote participating."
"Sure, it is a local exam. Just show me the message."
"That's the strange part. She guessed that you were still hanging around. She said, in particular, if I show you the message or let you participate, she'll find out and she'll drop the exam, even if it means getting an F." And in fact, that was the entire content of the message. It had a kind of nonnegotiable flavor that Juan envied.
They walked in silence the rest of the way to Juan's bicycle. Bertie's face was drawn down disapprovingly. Not a good sign. Juan hopped on his bike and pedaled off on New Pala, up over the ridge, and onto the long downslope toward home. Bertie's image conjured up a flying carpet, clambered aboard and ghosted along beside him. It was nicely done, the shadow following perfectly along over the gravel of the road shoulder. Of course, Bertie's faerie overlay blocked a good bit of Juan's visual field, including the most natural line of sight to see real traffic. Why couldn't he float along on Juan's other shoulder, or just be a voice? Juan shifted the image toward transparency and hoped Bertie would not guess at the change.
"C'mon, Bertie. I did what you asked. Let's talk about the unlimited exam. I'm sure I can be a help with that." If you'll just let me on the team.
Bertie was silent a second longer, considering. Then he nodded and gave an easy laugh. "Sure, Juan. We can use you on the unlimited team. You'll be a big help."
Suddenly the afternoon was a happy place.
They coasted down the steepening roadway. The wind that blew through Juan's hair and over his arms was something that was impossible to do artificially, at least without gaming stripes. The whole of the valley was spread out before him now, hazy in the bright sun. It was almost two miles to the next rise, the run up to Fallbrook. And he was on Bertie's unlimited team. "So what's our unlimited project going to be, Bertie?"
"Heh. How do you like my flying carpet, Juan?" He flew a lazy loop around Juan. "What really makes it possible?"
Juan squinted at him. "My contact lenses? Smart clothes?" Certainly the lense displays would be useless without a wearable computer to do the graphics.
"That's just the final output device. But how does my imaging get to you almost wherever you are?" He looked expectantly at Juan.
C'mon, Bertie! But aloud, Juan said: "Okay, that's the worldwide network."
"Yeah, you're essentially right, though the long-haul networks have been around since forever. What gives us flexibility are the network nodes that are scattered all through the environment. See, look around you!" Bertie must have pinged on the sites nearest Juan: There were suddenly dozens of virtual gleams, in the rocks by the road, in the cars as they passed closest to him, on Juan's own clothing.
Bertie gestured again, and the hills were alive with thousands of gleams, nodes that were two or three forwarding hops away. "Okay, Bertie! Yes, the local nets are important."
But Bertie was on a roll. "Darn right they are. Thumb-sized gadgets with very-low power wireless, just enough to establish location—and then even lower power shortrange lasers, steered exactly on to the targeted receivers. Nowadays, it's all so slick that unless you look close—or have a network sniffer—you almost can't even see that it's going on. How many free-standing nodes do you think there are in an improved part of town, Juan?"
That sort of question had a concrete answer. "Well, right now, the front lawn of Fairmont schools has ... 247 loose ones."
"Right," said Bertie. "And what's the most expensive thing about that?"
Juan laughed. "Cleaning up the network trash, of course!" The gadgets broke, or wore out, or they didn't get enough light to keep their batteries going. They were cheap; setting out new ones was easy. But if that's all you did, after a few months you'd have metallic garbage—hard, ugly, and generally toxic—all over the place.
Juan abruptly stopped laughing "Wow, Bertie. That's the project? Bio-degradable network nodes? That's off-scale!"
"Yup! Any progress toward organic nodes would be worth an A. And we might luck out. I'm plugged into all the right groups. Kistler at MIT, he doesn't know it, but one of his graduate students is actually a committee—and I'm on the committee." The Kistler people were cutting edge in organic substitution research, but just now they were stalled. The other relevant pieces involved idea markets in India, and some Siberian guys who hardly talked to anyone.
Juan thought a moment. "Hey, Bertie, I bet that literature survey I did for you last month might really help on this!" Bertie looked blank. "You remember, all my analysis on electron transfer during organic decay." It had been just a silly puzzle Bertie proposed, but it had given Juan a low-stress way to try out his new abilities.
"Yes!" said Bertie, slapping his forehead. "Of course! It's not directly related, but it might give the other guys some ideas."
Talking over the details took them through the bottom of the valley, past the newer subdivisions and then down the offramp that led to the old casinos. Bertie and his flying carpet flickered for a second, and then the overlay vanished as his friend lost the battle to find a handoff link.
"Dunno why you have to live in an unimproved part of town," Bertie grumbled in his ear.
Juan shrugged. "The neighborhood has fixed lasers and wireless." Actually, it was kind of nice to lose the flying carpet. He let his bike's recycler boost him up the little hill and then off into Las Mesitas. "So how are we going to work the concurrency on the unlimited test?"
"Easy. I'll chat up the Siberians in a couple of hours—then shuffle that across to my other groups. I don't know how fast things will break; it may be just you and me on the Fairmont side. Synch up with me after you get done with Miri Gu tonight, and we'll see about using your ‘magical memory'."
Juan frowned and pedaled fast along white sidewalks and turn-of-the-century condos. His part of town was old enough that it looked glitzy even without virtual enhancements.
Bertie seemed to notice his lack of response. "So is there a problem?"
Yes! He didn't like Bertie's unsubtle reference to what the little blue pills did for him. But that was just Bertie's way. In fact, today was all Bertie's way, both the good and the bad of it. "It's just that I'm a little worried about the local test. I know Miri gets good grades, and you say she is smart, but does she really have any traction?" What he really wanted to ask was why Bertie had pushed him into this, but he knew that any sort of direct question along those lines might provoke a Freeze Out.
"Don't worry, Juan. She'd do good work on any team. I've been watching her."
That last was news to Juan. Aloud he said, "I know she has a stupid brother over in senior high."
"Heh! William the Goofus? He is a dud, but he's not really her brother, either. No, Miri Gu is smart and tough. Did you know she grew up at Asilomar?"
"In a detention camp?"
"Yup. Well, she was only a baby. But her parents knew just a bit too much."
That had happened to lots of Chinese-Americans during the war, the ones who knew the most about military technologies. But it was also ancient history. Bertie was being more shocking than informative.
"Well, okay." No point in pushing. At least, Bertie let me on his unlimited team.
Almost home. Juan coasted down a short street and up his driveway, ducking under the creaking garage door that was just opening for him. "I'll get over to Miri's this evening and start the local team stuff while you're in East Asia."